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Well that explains everything or it explains nothing. Clearly, everyone in the Middle East is nuts, and if you don’t believe me just watch the news one night.

With all the killings in the name of religion, all the border wars and ethnic bloodshed, all the lunatic fringe elements and not-quite-as-lunatic majority elements running around trying to kill anyone who is not them, and especially anyone as not them as The United States, this Arabian Nights story seems downright quaint in its old school loonyness.

I know it is a losing game to apply logic to this, but if the ruling party could summon and control djinns I’d assume that arresting them would be impossible. They would be impervious to attack, and they would have destroyed their enemies long ago. The fact that you can arrest these magicians means that A- they are pretty crappy magicians or B- they are not magicians at all.

Of course you have to be careful summoning djinns. They are not all Barbara Eden in MC Hammer pants. Most of them can be pretty tricky or downright ruthless. If you were trapped in a lamp (and it doesn’t have to be a lamp- though it is usually oil or another liquid) and got a chance to you’d do your best to stay out and get someone else stuck in the lamp for eternity.

All in all, this story is a funny throwback to the days of mad sultans, genies in lamps, and Max Fleischer

BTW, I added the Popeye picture to the article. The day The Guardian starts editorializing like that is the day I subscribe.